Alfred Hitchcock enjoyed Chess

Shots of chess boards are quite common in movies where leisurely pursuits or an intellectual backdrop is trying to be portrayed.

Nell Snyder, played by Margaret Leighton, has been taking care of her orphaned niece and is growing more concerned over her niece's behavior.Her niece blames all mischievous behavior  on an imaginary friend named Mr. Peppercorn. When the girl's grandfather Captain King Snyder gives her a Creole voodoo doll, Nell grows even more worried. Her niece says the doll came from Mr. Peppercorn. She names it Numa and treats like a real person. Eventually, Nell begins to realize that the doll is real and that it is trying to usurp her niece's soul. She follows her niece and Numa into the forest. There, Nell frightens her away, not realizing that her niece is now the doll and the black doll has been transformed into a little black girl. She sees the doll and discovers that it bears her niece's face.and then chases the black girl into the woods hoping for a switch back.

The chess connection here is a scene where the grandfather is about to relax for a drink at a table where a chess board with pieces in original positions.

The title of this suspense flick is Where the Woodbine Twineth.

What is Woodbine? I believe Woodbine is a type of honeysuckle vine and the only time the orphan was really able to to engage Numa was where the woodbine grew or twineth!

Positional Exchange Sacrifice

Chess GrandMaster Jacob Aagaard wrote an excellent instructive book which emphasized the theme of positional exchange sacrifice. I would like to think that Mr Aagaard hailing from Scotland would find the following diagrammed position a very illustrative example of offering a positional exchange sacrifice.

 The game was played at the internet chess club under a 3 minute blitz time control. LucianoPavez playing out of Australia was handling the Black pieces defending against the Catalan Opening. His b7 Bishop was looking worse than the infamous bad French Defense Bishop.



The squares c5 and d6 are potential strong points for White pieces provided the e7 Bishop guardian could be removed. Moreover, Black's Rooks at c8 and c7 are clumsily and ineffectively placed in a game where  no open files are imminent.

How does White exploit the passivity of Black's play obtaining an iron grip on the dark squares including complete hegemony on the d6 square?

I believe that Jeremy Silman would cream "fantasizing" about this one in the never ending tug of war between position and material!